Under Water by Andrea Ring

Author:Andrea Ring [Andrea Ring]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Square Gorilla Press
Published: 2013-05-02T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

In the morning, I wake up stiff on the couch and it’s barely light out. I wrap myself in a blanket and find Clark in black jeans and nothing else, fresh out of the shower, toweling his long hair dry in the bathroom.

I smile at the sight, and Clark grins at me in the mirror.

“It’s Sunday,” I say, leaning against the doorjamb. “How are you up and around so early?”

He throws the towel on the counter and reaches for me.

I pull back. “I need to brush my teeth.”

He settles for kissing my cheek.

“Church.”

“You go to church?”

“When I can.”

“Huh.”

He points to my backpack, which is sitting beside the toilet.

“I brought your stuff in from the car, if you want to take a shower. You can come with me.”

“To church?” I squeak.

“You don’t have to,” he says, pulling on a black t-shirt. “No pressure. Hold down the fort and I’ll be back in an hour.”

“Church,” I say again.

“Have you ever been?”

“Not for a while.” I shake my head, trying to clear it. “I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s great that you go.”

“But?”

“No buts. It’s great.”

“But not for you,” he says.

“It’s just…I haven’t been since I got sick. I’d feel like a hypocrite.”

“Why a hypocrite?”

“Not a hypocrite,” I say. “A fraud.”

Clark puts his hands on my waist, and I concentrate on the strip of skin I can see between his t-shirt and his low-riding jeans.

“It’s not a prerequisite to believe before you go to church, Leni. Sometimes going can help us believe.”

I raise my eyes to his. “I believe. That’s not the problem. I just…I’m not ready to be forgiven.”

Clark’s eyes soften. “Guilt will eat at you. Trust me, I know. You deserve to be forgiven.”

I swallow hard. “Clark, you don’t even know what I’ve done.”

“I’m sure you’ll tell me when you’re ready. In the mean time, come with me. It’s just an hour. An hour of peace.”

Clark gives me privacy while I take a shower.

We get ready together, me toweling my hair dry while Clark spikes his into a mohawk. I apply mascara while he inserts his piercings, including a thin bull-like ring through the cartilage in the middle of his nose.

“Didn’t that hurt?” I ask him. “Going through the cartilage like that?”

“It’s not through the cartilage,” he says, pulling on the nose ring so I can get a good look. “It’s a septum piercing, and it goes through the tissue in front of it. They call that the ‘sweet spot.’”

I examine the inside of his nostril. I’m in total awe that he doesn’t mind me doing this. There’s no way I would let him look inside mine. What if I had bats in the cave?

“So it didn’t hurt?” I ask again.

He shrugs. “Some of my ear piercings hurt worse. But it made my eyes water and my nose tingle. I sneezed right in the guy’s face.”

I smile. “Must be an occupational hazard.”

“And it bled off and on for three weeks. Every time my nose itched, I re-opened the wound.”

I grimace.

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